Silk Roads, Steppe Roads: History Unearthed from the Tombs of Medieval China

Author: Jonathan Karam Skaff

Publication year: 2026

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Abstract:
Silk Roads, Steppe Roads takes the reader on a journey to three sites in northwestern China and Mongolia to investigate medieval Chinese tombs containing evidence of Eastern Eurasian cultural contacts and exchanges. The construction, artifacts, and texts on paper and stone found at these tombs of the Sui (581–618) and early Tang (618–907) dynasties reveal glimpses of people, rituals, and objects that were in motion on the Silk and Steppe roads until being laid to rest over a millennium ago.

Jonathan Karam Skaff shows how the major transit hubs of the Silk and Steppe roads were particularly active sites of cultural contestation, experimentation, and mutual influence that had an impact on the historical development of China and Inner Asia. Challenging the idealized image of the Silk Road, he also examines travel permits and sales contracts that document the trade of enslaved people over the route.

Innovatively drawing on both textual and archaeological sources, Silk Roads, Steppe Roads shows how Eurasian peoples, despite believing their societies to be unique, spun overlapping and entangled webs of culture.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
A Slave Road? Slaves and Slavers at Turfan
Sogdians or Borderlanders? Part I:
Lives Revealed in Epitaphs
Sogdians or Borderlanders? Part II:
Death Rituals Revealed in Tombs
A Tang Dynasty Ally in Ritual and War:
The Tomb of Pugu Yitu (635–678) in Mongolia
Conclusion

ACTA ASIATICA: Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture No. 119

Publication date:
August 2020

Sogdians in Sogdiana, China, and Turfan during the Sixth Century

Table of Contents:

YOSHIDA Yutaka吉田豊: Introduction

Alisher BEGMATOV, Amtriddin BERDIMURODOV, Gennadiy BOGOMOLOV, MURAKAMI Tomomi村上智見, TERA-MURA Hirofumi寺村裕史, UNO Takao宇野隆夫, and USAMI Tomoyuki宇佐美智之: New Discoveries from Kafir-kala: Coins, Sealings, and Wooden Cravings

Frantz GRENET: The Wooden Panels from Kafir-kala: A Group Portrait of the Samarkand nāf (Civic Body)

ARAKAWA Masaharu 荒川正晴: The Kao-ch‘ang Kingdom’s Rule of Turfan and Its Sogdian Colonies in the Sixth Century

BI Bo 畢波: The New Bilingual Sogdian and Chinese Epitaph from Yeh 鄴 and the Sogdians in the Northern Ch‘i Dynasty

YAMASHITA Shōji 山下将司: Sogdians during the Period of Division in North China in the Sixth Century as Depicted in Chinese-Language Epitaphs

Link:
http://www.tohogakkai.com/actaback101-new.html

Silk Roads: From Local Realities to Global Narratives

Editors:
Jeffrey D. Lerner & Yaohua Shi

Publication date:
August 2020

Publisher:
Oxbow Books

Abstract:
In recent decades, there has been a new surge of interest in the history and legacies of the Silk Roads both within academic and public discourses. A field of Silk Roads Studies has come into its own. Consciously mirroring the temperament of its subject, the field has moved out of the narrow niches of particular disciplines to become a truly interdisciplinary endeavor. New research findings about the historical operations of the Silk Roads and interpretations of their legacies for the modern and contemporary world have broken down geographical and temporal divides that once demarcated the Silk Roads as primarily pre-modern and Old World-centered conduits of globalization. In light of these developments, the time is ripe to begin formulating a new definition of the contour of Silk Roads Studies and laying a new foundation for further work in this field.

Silk Roads: From Local Realities to Global Narratives brings together leading scholars in multiple disciplines related to Silk Roads studies. It highlights the multiplicity of networks that constituted the Silk Roads, including land and maritime routes, and approaches the Silk Roads from Antiquity to China’s One Belt One Road Initiative from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas. This holistic approach to understanding ancient globalization, exchanges, transformations, and movements - and their continued relevance to the present - is in line with contemporary academic trends toward interdisciplinarity. Indeed, the Silk Roads is such an expansive topic that many approaches to its study must be included to represent accurately its many facets.

The volume emphasizes exchange and transformation along the Silk Roads - moments of acculturation or hybridization that contributed to novel syncretic forms. It highlights the multiplicity of networks that constituted the Silk Roads, including land and maritime routes, and approaches to the Silk Roads from Antiquity to China’s One Belt One Road Initiative from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas.

Table of Contents:
Introduction

Section One: Acculturation and Hybridization
1. The “Birth” of the Silk Road Between Ecological Frontiers and Military Innovation
Nicola Di Cosmo

2. Sogdians in Shanxi (386 CE-618 CE): Literary and Archeological Evidence
Xiaoyan Qi

3. From Exotic Toys to Objects of Scientific Inquiry: A Special Way of Transmitting European Optical Knowledge in the Qing Dynasty
Yunli Shi

4. The Karakorum Highway: Gateway of Empires, Religions, and Commerce
Saba Samee

Section Two: Understanding Spice Through Interdisciplinarity
 5. A TRP Along the Silk Roads: How and Why We Detect and Use Spices
Wayne Silver and Cecil J. Saunders

6. Silk Road Pharmacy: Debating Theriac and Defining the Natural World
Monique O’Connell

7. Spice and Taste in the Culinary World of the Early Modern Mediterranean
Eric Dursteler

Section Three: Tradition as Continuity and Change
8. Devotional Prints and Practice: Woodcuts from the Library Cave at Dunhuang
Bernadine Barnes

9. Dome of Heaven: From the Lantern Ceiling to the Chinese Wooden Dome
Di Luo

10. “Malacca” – From Fabled Port to Muddy Lagoon: A Cautionary Tale of Ecological Disaster
Margaret Sarkissian

11. Twenty-first Century Trading Routes in Mongolia: Changing Pastoral Soundscapes and Lifeways
Jennifer Post

12. Erasing the Local, Celebrating the Local: Tracing the Contradictions of the Silk Road in Pakistan
Chad Haines

Section Four: Cultural Transactions
13. Arsacid Economic Activity on the Silk Road
Touraj Daryaee

14. Pearls and Power: Chōla's Tribute Mission to the Northern Song Court within the Maritime Silk Road Trade Network
James A. Anderson

15. “Flying Cash”: Credit Instruments on the Silk Roads
Dan Du

Section Five: Long-Distance Commodity Trade
16. The Case for Shipwrecked Indians in Germany
Jeffrey D. Lerner

17. Samuel Shaw’s ‘Maritime Silk Road’ from American Independence towards Monopoly, 1784–1794
John A. Ruddiman

Lives of Sogdians in Medieval China

Author:
Huber, Moritz

Publisher:
Harrassowitz Verlag

Publication date:
March 2020

Abstract:
Sogdians, a group of Central Asians based between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, played a significant historical role at the crossroads of the Silk Roads. Travelling the world as caravan leaders, organised in trading networks, they were found from Byzantium to the Chinese heartland. The Sogdian language was a candidate for the lingua franca of the Silk Roads for some hundred years and Sogdians acted as polyglot mediators at courts and prominent translators of Buddhist texts. In the Chinese capitals, fire temples were erected for their use and the exotic products they imported were cherished by the people and the court.

This socio-historical study by Moritz Huber provides a translation of the transmitted Chinese records on Sogdians in Sogdiana and China and combines them with archaeological evidence to present a differentiated picture of their presence in China from the 3rd to 10th century CE. Besides the transcription and translation of all epitaphs of Sogdians from an archaeological context, used to tell their interconnected biographies, as well as a detailed discussion of their political organisation in China under the sabao 薩保/薩寶, this publication further includes a case-study of the Shi 史 families in Guyuan 固原, Ningxia 寧夏 Province.

Table of Contents:

グローバル・ヒストリー

Author: 
妹尾達彥 (Tatsuhiko Seo)

Publisher: 
中央大学出版部

Publication date: 
May 2018

Abstract:

従来とは異なる見方で人類の歴史を読み解き、人類共生の道を求める21世紀の世界史教科書。 内陸部から沿海部に交通の幹線が移動することによって、人類の政治や軍事、経済、社会の組織、 宗教、思想のあり方が大きく変貌していき、現代世界がつくられていくことを、豊富な図を駆使して体系 的かつ具体的に論じる。前3000年紀における都市と国家の形成から今日までの世界の歴史を読み 解く鍵は、交通史と都市史にある。ユーラシア大陸東部の歴史を一つのモデルとして世界史の構造を さぐり、21世紀の混沌を生きる人々に新しい歴史像を提供する。

Table of Contents:

第1部 グローバル・ヒストリーの理論と方法
第1講 人類史の大きな流れを把握する
第2講 3つの仮説 ─生態環境の境域で国家がつくられる─
第3講 前近代の世界システム ─生態環境と広域経済圏─
第4講 空間の分類 ─ユーラシア大陸東部・中央部・西部という空間設定の提唱─
第5講 時間の区分 ─4~7世紀と16~18世紀を画期とする三時期区分─

第2部 グローバル・ヒストリーの三段階─古典国家・農牧複合国家・近代国民国家─ 
第6講 初期国家 ─国家の始まり─
第7講 古典国家 ─前1000年紀における遊牧国家の形成と農業国家の再編─
第8講 農牧複合国家 ─4~7世紀の混乱と農牧複合の構築─
第9講 世界宗教圏 ─広域経済圏の形成と個人意識の確立─
第10講 都城時代の誕生 ─東アジアの都城時代と日本の建国─
第11講 “商業帝国" の交替 ─ソグド商人からイスラーム商人へ─
第12講 古典文化の復興運動 ─ユーラシア大陸の複数のルネサンス─
第13講 西欧の勃興と全球史(グローバルヒストリー) ─沿海都市網の拡大と近代国家の形成─
第14講 国民広場の誕生 ─視覚化される20世紀と目に見えない21世紀─

第3部 グローバル・ヒストリーとしての現在と未来 
第15講 これからの世界:ユーラシア大陸経済圏の形成

The Cambridge History of China Volume 2: The Six Dynasties, 220–589

Editors:
Albert E. Dien & Keith N. Knapp

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

Publication date:

2019

Abstract:

The Six Dynasties Period (220–589 CE) is one of the most complex in Chinese history. Written by leading scholars from across the globe, the essays in this volume cover nearly every aspect of the period, including politics, foreign relations, warfare, agriculture, gender, art, philosophy, material culture, local society, and music. While acknowledging the era's political chaos, these essays indicate that this was a transformative period when Chinese culture was significantly changed and enriched by foreign peoples and ideas. It was also a time when history and literature became recognized as independent subjects and religion was transformed by the domestication of Buddhism and the formation of organized Daoism. Many of the trends that shaped the rest of imperial China's history have their origins in this era, such as the commercial vibrancy of southern China, the separation of history and literature from classical studies, and the growing importance of women in politics and religion.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Part I. History:
1. Wei   Rafe de Crespigny
2. Wu   Rafe de Crespigny
3. Shu-Han   J. Michael Farmer
4. Western Jin   Damien Chaussende
5. Eastern Jin   Charles Holcombe
6. The Sixteen Kingdoms   Charles Holcombe
7. Cheng-Han State   Terry F. Kleeman
8. Northern Wei   Scott Pearce
9. Eastern Wei-Northern Qi   Albert E. Dien
10. Western Wei-Northern Zhou   Albert E. Dien
11. The Southern dynasties   Andrew Chittick

Part II. Society and Realia:
12. The art of war  David A. Graff
13. Foreign relations  Charles Holcombe
14. The Northern economy  Victor Cunrui Xiong
15. The Southern economy  Liu Shufen 劉淑芬
16. Agriculture  Francesca Bray
17. The history of Sogdians in China  Rong Xinjiang 榮新江
18. Northern material culture  Shing Müller
19. Southern material culture   Annette Kieser
20. Women, families, and gendered society  Jen-der Lee 李貞德
21. Local society Hou Xudong 侯旭東

Part III. Culture, Religion and Art:
22. Confucian learning and influence   Keith N. Knapp
23. Qingtan and Xuanxue   Y. K. Lo
24. Buddhism   John Kieschnick
25. Daoism   Stephen R. Bokenkamp
26. Popular religion   Robert Ford Campany
27. The world of prose literature   Antje Richter
28. The world of poetry   Cynthia Chennault
29. Art and visual culture   Wu Hung 巫鴻
30. Music   Bo Lawergren

Workshop on Migration and Border-crossing in Early Medieval China

Co-organizers: 

Wen-Yi Huang & Xiaofei Tian

Date:

May 23, 2019

Location: 

The Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA

Harvard University

Program

9:30-9:40         Opening Remarks

Panel I. Going South

9:40-10:40

Evan Nicoll-Johnson (University of Alberta), “Guo Pu (276-324) the Wanderer: Magic and Migration in the Jin Dynasty”

Lu Kou (Williams College), “Detainees and Letters to Request Release in Early Medieval China”

Panel II. The Mobility of Texts and Images

10:40-11:40

Keith N. Knapp (The Citadel), “Cultural Baggage: The Transmission and Spread of Accounts of Filial Offspring during the Northern and Southern Dynasties”

Fan Zhang (NYU-Shanghai), “Between Hexi and Pingcheng: Migration of Image, Style, and People”

11:40-1:00        Lunch [Workshop Participants Only]

Panel III. Looking Back and Around

1:00-2:00

Jack W. Chen (University of Virginia), “Looking Back across the River: Nostalgia as Migrancy in the Shishuo xinyu”

Xiaofei Tian (Harvard University), “The Worlds on the Edge between Darkness and Light: Fifth-century ‘Supernatural’ Stories of a Migrant Community”

Panel IV. Rootedness, Relocation, and Identity

2:00-3:00

Andrew Chittick (Eckerd College), “Borderlands and Migration to North and South: A Study of the Qing-Qi Region in the Fifth Century CE”

Wen-Yi Huang (Harvard University), “How to Name People on the Move: A Case Study of the Northern Wei”

3:00-3:15         Coffee Break

Panel V. Moving Monks and Merchants

3:15-4:15

James Robson (Harvard University), “Monks, Movement, and Migration: A Preliminary Assessment of the Large-Scale Movement of Buddhist Monks in Early Medieval China”

Jin Xu (Vassar College), “Following in the Footsteps of Siddhartha: Shi Jun Sarcophagus and the Picturing of an Allegorical Biography”

4:15-4:45         General Discussion and Concluding Remarks

6:30                 Dinner for Workshop Participants

＊For more details, please visit our website:

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/2019emcmigration/home-0

Early Medieval North China: Archaeological and Textual Evidence

Editors:
Shing Müller, Thomas O. Höllmann, and Sonja Filip

Publication date:
2019

Publisher:
Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden

Abstract:

The Xianbei from southeast Mongolia were the first foreign sovereignty over North China since the 4th century. During the 200 years of Xianbei rulership, the cultures of old and new inhabitants – the Han-Chinese, the Xianbei and diverse steppe peoples, the Sogdians and other Central Asians from the west – confronted and competed with one another.

This volume is one of the first in Europe that concentrates on the cultural conflicts and the emergence of new traditions in North China during the Early Medieval period. Topics include archaeological evidence of the early Fuyu culture in southern Manchuria and early traces of Sogdians in Qinghai, impacts of Buddhism in the formation of new funerary cults and new city planning, the hybridization of diverse funerary traditions such as the use of head rests and stone beds and house-shaped sarcophagi, the emergence of a multiple identity for denizens as an adaptation to a fast changing world, and the militarization of the northern society as seen in murals and in defense lines. Also included are new insights on the Chinese sabao and Sogdian s’rtp’w titles, and discussions on Sogdian slaves in the Kocho Kingdom as well as on “multi-culture” in Chinese historiographical works.

Table of Contents:

EARLY MEDIEVAL SOCIETIES:HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

Monique Nagel-Angermann 丁慕妮
Cultural Diversity in Early Medieval Northern China from the Perspective of Chinese Historiography (從史籍看中古世紀早期中國北方的文化多樣性)

Annette Kieser 安然
Eastern Jin Society from the Perspective of the Archaeological Evidence:  A Preliminary Survey (從考古角度看東晉社會)  

田立坤 Tian Likun 
四世紀夫餘史蹟鈎沉 (Exploring the Forgotten History of the Fuyu 夫餘of the 4th Century: An Archaeological and Textual Survey)

張志忠 Zhang Zhizhong 
大同北魏墓葬佛教圖像淺議 (On the Buddhist Imagery of a Northern Wei Tomb in Datong) 

林聖智 Lin Sheng-chih 
反思北魏的宗教與墓葬圖像 (Rethinking the Religious and Funerary Iconography of the Northern Wei Dynasty)

Chin-Yin Tseng 曾慶盈 
Imagining the Self in Northern Wei: Case Studies of Shaling M7 and Yanbei Shiyuan M5 (北魏時代的自我畫像: 以沙嶺M7與雁北師院M5為例)

羅豐 Luo Feng 
固原北魏漆棺畫年代的再確定 (The Painted Northern Wei  Lacquer Coffin of Guyuan: Dating Revised)

魏堅 Wei Jian
牛川古城與北魏六鎮 (The Niuchuan Fortress and the Six Garrisons of the Northern Wei Dynasty)

張慶捷 Zhang Qingjie 
忻州九原崗北朝壁畫墓軍事內容窺探 (Military Themes in the Murals of the Northern Dynasties Tomb in Xinzhou)

王銀田 Wang Yintian
北朝時期的獸面紋: 以鋪首銜環為例 (Animal Masks of the Northern Dynasties) 


BECOMING METROPOLITAN

錢國祥 Qian Guoxiang

北魏洛陽宮城的勘察研究新進展 (The Imperial City of the Northern Wei Luoyang in Light of Recent Archaeological Studies)

朱岩石 Zhu Yanshi 

東魏北齊鄴城皇家佛寺遺跡考古發現與研究 (Buddhist Temples in the Eastern Wei/Northern Qi City of Ye: An Archaeological Study)

Dorothy C. Wong 王靜芬

Buddhist Transformation of Chang’an’s Architectural and Cultural Landscape, ca. 650–720 (佛教對長安建築與文化的改造, 約 650 年至 720 年)

SOGDIAN DIASPORA

張建林, 才洛太 Zhang Jianlin, Tshelothar (Cai Luotai) 

青海藏醫藥文化博物館藏彩繪棺板 (Painted Wooden Coffins in the Tibetan Medical Culture Museum) 

Jonathan Karam Skaff 斯加夫

Slavery and Foreign Slaves at Turfan during the Gaochang Kingdom (442–640) (高昌國（442–640）時期吐魯番地區的奴隸制與胡奴)

Albert E. Dien 丁愛博

Consideration of Some Aspects of the Sogdian Experience in China: From sabo to s’rtp’w (入華粟特人的生命歷程: 從“薩薄”到“s’rtp’w”)

CULTURAL INTERACTIONS

倪潤安 Ni Run’an 

北魏平城灰枕葬俗考 (Funerary Headrests in the Northern Wei Pingcheng Burials) 

韋正 Wei Zheng 

五世紀中後期的平城: 以墓葬資料為中心的觀察 (Pingcheng in the  Second Half of the Fifth Century as Seen fromBurial Materials)

Shing Müller 宋馨

Funerary Beds and Houses of the Northern Dynasties (北朝的石床與石室) 

白雲翔 Bai Yunxiang 

北朝時期民族文化交流與融合的宏觀考察: 以北朝墓葬遺存為中心(The Confluence of Cultures during the Northern Dynasties Period from the Aspect of Tomb Findings)

齊東方 Qi Dongfang 

生與死——兩個世界的徘徊 (Life and Death – Pondering the Two Worlds) 

From Liturgy to Pharmacology: Christian Sogdian texts from the Turfan Collection

Editor: 
Nicholas Sims-Williams

Publication: 
2019

Publisher:
Turnhout: Brepols Publishers

Abstract:

Containing a variety of texts ranging from liturgy to pharmacology via hagiography, calendars and ascetical works by Isaac of Nineveh, this volume completes the publication of all known Christian Sogdian texts. This volume completes the publication of the Christian Sogdian texts of the Berlin Turfan Collection begun by F. W. K. Müller in 1907. Several Syriac texts are also included, in particular a series of liturgical texts in Syriac with Sogdian rubrics (edited in collaboration with J. F. Coakley). 

The texts edited here are mostly short but extremely varied and interesting. The Syriac liturgical fragments are some of the earliest surviving witnesses to the liturgy of the "Church of the East", though the Sogdian rubrics which accompany them show that those who performed them were not native speakers of Syriac. Other texts connected with the liturgy include a Sogdian version of the Gloria in excelsis and a text explaining how to calculate the date of Easter or Lent. Hagiographical texts include fragments of the martyrdoms of St George and of Cyriacus and Julitta as well as part of the so-called "Six Books" on the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. Two pharmacological fragments (edited in collaboration with Dieter Maue) show familiarity with Indian medicine, while a "prayer-amulet" belongs rather to a Syriac tradition. Finally, a chapter contributed by Adrian Pirtea contains the re-edition of a well-preserved folio identified by him as a Sogdian version of a work by Isaac of Nineveh. 

The edition and translation of the texts is accompanied by a detailed commentary. The volume is completed by a full glossary, a bibliography, and a word-index covering all five of the author’s volumes of Christian Sogdian texts in the series BTT.

Three Manichaean Sogdian letters unearthed in Bäzäklik, Turfan （ベゼクリク千仏洞出土のマニ教ソグド語手紙文研究）

Author:
Yutaka YOSHIDA（吉田豊)

Publisher:
臨川書店

Publication date:
January 2019

Abstract:

1981年に中華人民共和国ウイグル自治区のトルファン市の北東に位置するベゼクリク千仏洞の遺跡から発見され、世界的に注目を集めながら本格的な紹介がこれまでなされなかったマニ教ソグド語文書3点をめぐって、そのテクスト・翻訳・註釈・語彙を提出すると共に、その歴史的背景及びソグド語手紙文の書式一般を論じる（全文英文）。

Table of Contents:
Plates and maps

Preface

Bibliography

Abbreviations

Part I: Introduction
1 Discovery of the letters and the previous studies
2 The Contents and Dating of the letters
3 Possible places of dispatch: the problem of Twδ kδ mentioned in Letter B
Excursus: The name of Samarqand attested in a Turfan fragment
4 Relationship between the Manichaeans resident in the West Uighur Kingdom and those in Samarqand and the territory of the Karakhanid Kingdom
5 Seat of archegos in Turfan?

Part II: Epistolary formula of the three Bäzäklik letters and other Sogdian letters
1 Structual components of the letters
2 Continuity of formulaic phrases
3 Model letters
4 Recurring expressions
Excursus: Seal impressions

Part III: Text, translation, and commentaries
1 Introduction: Description of the manuscripts and their paleographical and linguistic features
2 Letter A
3 Letter B
4 Letter C

Glossary

Index

Lists of plates, maps, tables and figures

絲路、遊牧民與唐帝國 (シルクロードと唐帝国)

Author:
森安孝夫  (MORIYASU Takao) 

Translator:
張雅婷

Publication date:
April 2018

Publisher:
八旗文化 (gūsa publishing)

Table of Contents:

序章＿何謂真正的「自虐史觀」？
◎ 本書的目的
被絲路與唐帝國吸引的日本人／現代日本人對歐美的自卑情結／先進的亞洲和落後的歐洲／從「國民史」邁向「全球通史」／歷史學的意義／本書的論述結構與目的
◎ 人種、民族、國民的根據何在？
人種並無優劣之別／民族與國民是近代的產物／土耳其民族的情形／唐代與現代的「回鶻族」／企圖混淆國民與民族／漢族的真相／勝利者的邏輯／何謂真正的愛國者？
◎ 打破西洋中心史觀
近代西歐文明的優越與侷限／理科類歷史學、文科類歷史學、歷史小說／何謂真正的「自虐史觀」／反思日本人的歷史意識

第一章＿絲路與世界史
◎ 從中央歐亞的視角出發
何謂「中央歐亞」？／遊牧騎馬民族的故鄉／北中國和中亞／農牧接壤地帶
◎ 何謂絲路？
絲路的定義與變遷／東西南北的網絡／絲路貿易的本質／壁畫遺跡的涵義
◎ 絲路史觀論爭
抹煞「絲路」的行為／回鶻文書的反證／環境史的視點／在世界史的重要性／歐亞大陸史的時代區分／對強調伊斯蘭化的質疑／對世界史時代區分的新建議

第二章＿粟特人的登場
◎ 絲路的主角
粟特研究小史／粟特人的故鄉──索格底亞那／粟特文字與粟特語
◎ 粟特人的社會與商業
粟特商人的記錄／從書簡看遠距商業／稱價錢文書與史料殘存的偶然性／商業立國的社會構成
◎ 粟特網絡
漢文史料中的粟特人的分辨法／粟特網絡的推測復原
◎ 前進東方
商人與武人的兩面性／在外交、政治上也很活躍／西魏的正式使節──安諾槃陀／虞弘墓出土的衝擊／作為國際通用語的粟特語
◎ 河西走廊的粟特人軍團
河西第一大都市──涼州／粟特人聚落的領導者──薩寶／關於粟特人與唐建國的新學說

第三章＿唐朝的建立與突厥的興亡
◎ 多民族國家──唐帝國
唐朝不是漢族王朝／唐建國的功臣──鮮卑／鄂爾多斯地區的重要性／拓跋國家與突厥第一帝國／突厥的東西分裂／唐草創期的突厥優勢
◎ 太宗擊敗突厥
玄武門之變與太宗即位／唐的優勢與東突厥的歸順／如何處理突厥遺民？／冊封前王族──阿史那思摩
◎ 唐朝的極盛期
天可汗的稱號／從昭陵看北族的影響／漠北漠南的羈縻州與都護府／隋唐的踏足西域／西突厥的一時強盛／唐鼎盛期的西域支配／隋唐是「征服王朝」？

Great Journeys across the Pamir Mountains: A Festschrift in Honor of Zhang Guangda on his Eighty-fifth Birthday

Editors: 
Huaiyu Chen 陳懷宇 and Xinjiang Rong 榮新江

Publication Date: 
24 May 2018

Publisher:
Brill

Abstract:

Drawing upon numerous manuscripts from China and Central Asia, the articles presented in this volume by leading scholars in the field examine a broad range of topics on the multi-lingual, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic communities along the Silk Road in the medieval period, and cover such topics as the social history of Kucha, book history in Dunhuang, the spread of Manichaeism, the political history of Turkic and Khotanese Kingdoms, and the travelogue of the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang. They demonstrate that Han Chinese, Khotanese, Sogdians, Tocharians, Tibetans, and Uyghurs have all contributed to constructing a sophisticated international network across Asia.

Table of Contents:

A Note from the Editors

A Chronological Bibliography of Professor Zhang Guangda

1 On the Word ṣau Found in the Kuchean Secular Documents
Ching Chao-jung 慶昭蓉

2 Dunhuang and Two Revolutions in the History of the Chinese Book
Jean-Pierre Drège

3 Two Fragments of Tocharian B laissez-passers Kept in the Berlin Collection
Ogihara Hirotoshi 荻原裕敏

4 Possible Adaptation of the Book of the Giants in the Manichaean Traité
Ma Xiaohe 馬小鶴

5 The Rouran Qaghanate and the Western Regions during the Second Half of the Fifth Century based on a Chinese Document Newly Found in Turfan
Rong Xinjiang

6 A Sogdian Fragment from Niya
Nicolas Sim-Williams and Bi Bo 畢波

7 On the Chinese Name for the Syr Darya in Xuanzang’s Account of Western Regions
Takata Tokio 高田時雄

8 A New Study on Mouyu Qaghan’s Conversion to Manichaeism
Wang Xiaofu 王小甫

9 Beyond Deciphering: An Overview of Tocharian Studies over the Past Thirty Years
Xu Wenkan 徐文堪

10 Historical Background of the Sevrey Inscription in Mongolia
Yoshida Yutaka 吉田豊

11 “The Annals of the Noble Land Khotan”: A New Translation of a Chapter of rGya bod yig tshang chen mo
Zhu Lishuang

12 Kaniṣka in the Old Turkic Tradition
Peter Zieme

[Dissertation] Engraving Identities in Stone: Stone Mortuary Equipment of the Northern Dynasties (386-581 CE)

Author:
XU, Jin 徐津

School:
University of Chicago

Defended:
2017

Abstract:

The Northern Dynasties (386-581 CE) marked a turning point in Chinese history. After the collapse of the Han Empire in 220 AD, the native Han Chinese were never again able to establish an enduring unified dynasty again. Consequently, the Northern Dynasties represented the final stage of the longstanding political division between dynasties in the south, ruled by Han aristocrats and generals, and the kingdoms in the north, founded by various peoples of nomadic origins. From the Northern Wei (386-534 CE) to the Northern Zhou (557-581 CE), nomadic Xianbei rulers created and consolidated a ruling coalition composed of multiple cultural and ethnic groups, which paved the way for the reunification of China in 589 CE and the emergence of the so-called golden age of Chinese civilization.

The interaction between diverse cultural and ethnic groups that characterized the Northern Dynasties was especially intense among the uppermost echelon of the society. The key to understanding the dynamism of this interaction is a careful consideration of the colorful ways in which people of the period defined themselves politically, culturally, and personally. To this end, this dissertation addresses the question of how the elites of the Northern Dynasties used stone mortuary equipment to express their identity. Eschewing the hackneyed analytical paradigm of sinicization (or desinicization), this dissertation draws attention to political, communal, and individual identity through a series of case studies. By so doing, it also reveals the intersection of identities during the Northern Dynasties.

This dissertation is comprised of three chapters and chiefly uses visual analysis to account for the material properties, spatial strategies, and narrative images of mortuary stones. The first chapter investigates the mortuary stones of three groups of people: the Tuoba royalty of the Northern Wei, Sogdian immigrant merchants, and Han scholarly officials. It demonstrates how these people articulated their distinct political, communal, and cultural identity by taking advantage of the ritual significance, versatility, and natural beauty of the material of stone. Concentrating on the Shi Jun 史君 sarcophagus, the second chapter reveals the dualistic identity (secular and spiritual) of a Sogdian immigrant merchant. Shi Jun’s tomb brings together two distinct spaces — a physical space of ancestor worship constructed according to Confucian ritual protocols and a virtual space of paradisiac afterlife invoked by religious visual devices. The third chapter focuses on the narrative engravings of mortuary stones and demonstrates that artists of the Northern Dynasties tended to customize standardized illustrations in such a way that they could capture the personal identity of the tomb owner. This chapter first discusses how artists transformed filial son illustrations into mortuary symbols or allegorical portraits of the deceased. Secondly, this chapter shows how the artists that created the Shi Jun sarcophagus composed a pictorial biography of the deceased by deploying the illustrations of the Buddha’s life.

Eurasian Empires in Late Antiquity: Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppe

Editors:
Nicola Di Cosmo & Michael Maas

Publisher:
Cambridge University Press

Publication Date:
January 2018

Abstract:

Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity offers an integrated picture of Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppes during a formative period of world history. In the half millennium between 250 and 750 CE, settled empires underwent deep structural changes, while various nomadic peoples of the steppes (Huns, Avars, Turks, and others) experienced significant interactions and movements that changed their societies, cultures, and economies. This was a transformational era, a time when Roman, Persian, and Chinese monarchs were mutually aware of court practices, and when Christians and Buddhists criss-crossed the Eurasian lands together with merchants and armies. It was a time of greater circulation of ideas as well as material goods. This volume provides a conceptual frame for locating these developments in the same space and time. Without arguing for uniformity, it illuminates the interconnections and networks that tied countless local cultural expressions to far-reaching inter-regional ones.

Table of Contents:

Part I. Historical Thresholds:

1. How the steppes became Byzantine: Rome and the Eurasian Nomads in historical perspective 
Michael Maas

2. The relations between China and the steppe from the Xiongnu to the Türk Empire 
Nicola Di Cosmo

3. Sasanian Iran and the projection of power in Late Antique Eurasia: competing cosmologies and topographies of power 
Matthew P. Canepa

4. Trade and exchanges along the silk and steppe routes in Late Antique Eurasia 
Richard Lim

5. Sogdian merchants and Sogdian culture on the silk road 
Rong Xinjiang 榮新江

6. 'Charismatic' goods: commerce, diplomacy, and cultural contacts along the silk road in Late Antiquity 
Peter Brown

7. The synthesis of the Tang Dynasty: the culmination of China's contacts and communication with Eurasia 
Valerie Hansen

8. Central Asia in the Late Roman mental map, second to sixth centuries 
Giusto Traina

Part II. Movements, Contacts, and Exchanges:

9. Genetic history and migrations in Western Eurasia 
Patrick Geary

10. Northern invaders: migration and conquest as scholarly topos in Eurasian history 
Michael Kulikowski

11. Chinese and inner Asian perspectives on the history of the Northern dynasties (386–589 CE) in Chinese historiography 
Luo Xin 羅新

12. Xiongnu and Huns: archaeological perspectives on a centuries-old debate about identity and migration 
Ursula Brosseder

13. Ethnicity and empire in the Western Eurasian Steppes 
Walter Pohl

14. The languages of Christianity on the silk roads and the transmission of Mediterranean culture into central Asia 
Scott Fitzgerald Johnson

15. The spread of Buddhist culture to China between the third and seventh century 
Max Deeg

16. The circulation of astrological lore and its political use between the Roman East, Sasanian Iran, Central Asia, and the Türks 
Frantz Grenet

17. Luminous markers: pearls and royal authority in Late Antique Iran and Eurasia 
Joel Walker

Part III. Empires, Diplomacy, and Frontiers:

18. Byzantium's Eurasian policy in the age of the Türk Empire 
Mark Whittow

19. Sasanian Iran and its northeastern frontier: offense, defense, and diplomatic 
Daniel T. Potts

20. Infrastructures of legitimacy in inner Asia: the Early Türk Empires 
Michael R. Drompp

21. The stateless Nomads of Central Eurasia 
Peter B. Golden

22. Aspects of elite representation among the sixth- to seventh-century Türks 
Sören Stark

23. Patterns of Roman diplomacy with Iran and the steppe peoples 
Ekaterina Nechaeva

24. Collapse of a Eurasian hybrid: the case of the Northern Wei
Andrew Eisenberg

25. Ideological interweaving in Eastern Eurasia: simultaneous kingship and dynastic competition 
Jonathan Karam Skaff

26. Followers and leaders in northeastern Eurasia, ca. seventh to tenth centuries
Naomi Standen

Epilogue 
Averil Cameron.